Crimson Threads and Gold
by Lisiara
Summary: How can someone who's never known love recognise it when it's offered? Emotions bind memories strongly into the heart, and it's not always easy to let them go. Sweet and angsty and Tsuzuki/Hisoka.
1. Little Earthquakes

****

Crimson Threads and Gold

Heh... Yami no Matsuei is unquestionably the property of Matsushita Yoko-sensei, being as how I can't draw a straight line with a ruler.

A/N: Um. This story is predominantly based on the manga rather than the anime (just in case there are any questions...), and is a futurefic, i.e. post-Kyoto and post-GensoKai. It's also probably going to be pretty fluffy, since I'm writing it as a semi-break from the Great Big Angsty Fic of Doom That Ate My Life. So, fluff, romance, and snuggliness. Oh, and slash. Shounen-ai! Technically speaking, I'm going to call this **slash** since it's not always going to conform to yaoi conventions and stereotypes. Also, please note it's going to stay PG-13 for a while, but I am anticipating some NC-17 material in the future, which will be posted elsewhere in the form of 'extra scenes.' At that point, anyone who's legal and wants it can email me.

Crimson Threads and Gold

Chapter One – Little Earthquakes

As soon as he stepped into the room, Hisoka felt himself turn pale. It was bad enough being in the hospital to begin with; the only way he had managed to make it this far through the building was by throwing up the strongest mental barricades he could manage and reciting the alphabet silently in his head. So many people, so much pain and fear and worry... He concentrated on building imaginary walls around himself, trying not to think about the very real physical walls that had once enclosed him, kept him confined. Those times were gone; relics of his life that need no longer affect him. He was free now – to an extent.

A gentle prod between his shoulderblades startled him into a stumbling step forwards, and Hisoka turned to glare back at Tsuzuki. His partner grinned at him unashamedly and slipped past into the little room, trenchcoat hanging unnaturally still about his incorporeal form. Hisoka, resisting the temptation to snap at the idiot not to touch him – especially not when he was already so overstretched – steeled himself to move forward into the little ICU chamber. Every step he took eroded his barriers a little further; the emotional level in the room was high, although there was only one occupant. The emotions themselves were subtly different from the general morass of the hospital, and Hisoka frowned a little. There was pain, yes, murky and grey-black in the background, but it seemed more of a spiritual pain than a physical, and it was dominated by a fear so intense that he could practically reach out and touch it. And something else, just below it – resignation? The spiky yellow-green of the fear clouded everything, but there was a hint of something duller, just beneath the surface. _Surely, if she's dying, she shouldn't be so afraid. By rights, she should be _unconscious_..._

"Is she conscious?" Tsuzuki was standing at the head of the bed, surrounded by the whirring hospital monitors, and looking down at the pale, still form of the young woman who was hooked up to them. At Hisoka's question he looked up; he was wearing his 'helpless' expression, that blank, slightly sorrowful face that said there was nothing he could do for this person, no way he could save them.

"No. She's fading fast." Tsuzuki's voice was quieter than usual, subdued in the hushed way that people always seemed to speak in hospitals. Hisoka remembered... _No. Not now_. His partner gave a tiny little shrug that echoed the resignation and guilt Hisoka felt from him. It always hurt Tsuzuki when the young ones died, especially when they clung so hard to life. Sometimes Hisoka wondered why he stayed in this job, when it cost him so much pain.

"Ironic," he commented thoughtfully, trying to put his finger on just what about the scene felt so wrong to him. "That we chased her halfway across Kyushu for the past week – and now that we've finally found her, she's dying already." _At least it's better than having to kill her,_ he thought privately. _I know how much it weighs on you – and you won't let me carry any of the burden for you. _ This way, the soul would return to Meifu without their intervention – and without adding to Tsuzuki's pain. Sometimes, Hisoka wished that there was something, anything, that he could do to heal the wounds that he knew existed beneath the other's outward calm – but when he was unable to heal himself, how could he help others? Those wounds had their roots deep in the past, and all Hisoka had by way of experience was sixteen short years – sixteen years of loneliness and fear and pain. How could he help anyone, bearing the stamp of Muraki's creation within him?

"Hmm." Tsuzuki was looking down at the girl again, and Hisoka followed his gaze. _Kamari Reiko_, read the nametag at the head of the bed, just as it had been printed at the bottom of the case list Tatsumi had handed the Kyushu Shinigami as soon as they had arrived back at the office. The secretary had looked positively distraught at the number of cases which had piled up in Area 2 while they had been in the GensoKai, and it had only been through Tsuzuki's pleading that they had been allowed to get a night's sleep before starting off. Reiko's, though, had been the last case on the list, and Hisoka – perhaps naively – had anticipated a fairly easy job of finding out why she was refusing to die despite the rare and undiagnosed brain illness she was suffering from. Instead, the case had turned into something reminiscent of a mystery novel; the two Shinigami had arrived at the tiny village where the Kamari family lived only to find that the subject of their investigation had disappeared several days previously, to the consternation of her family. Finally (through more luck than judgement on Tsuzuki's part, Hisoka was certain) they had traced her to Nagasaki, only to be contacted by the Gushoshin with the news that Reiko had been admitted to hospital two hours earlier after a traffic accident.

Now, Hisoka though bleakly, her death was assured; her body was too injured, too damaged to let her survive. She was fading already, and it was probably better this way than slowly, later, in pain. At least now whatever pain she felt was beneath the level of her conscious mind; he could see the narrow tube of the morphine drip snaking its way down her forearm, could remember all too well being attached to one himself. Pain and fear, and three long years of dying. It had been here, in Nagasaki, that he had realised the truth – had been _allowed_ to remember the truth by his murderer, by the man who had imprinted his own patterns onto Hisoka's body, had broken and remade him. Some day, Muraki would pay for that, along with all his other crimes, but there would be no vengeance for this girl. By all accounts, the accident that morning had been Reiko's own fault; she had run out into the middle of a busy intersection during the rush hour, and the van which had hit her had been unable to stop in time. Strange, after such a time spent avoiding it, that she should precipitate her own death in such a manner. Stranger still, this level of fear...

"That's it," Hisoka blurted, realising at last what it was that was troubling him. Tsuzuki looked up curiously.

"What's what?"

"There's so much fear – she's so afraid, even though she should be unconscious, and it's not fear of death. It's something else, something that scared her so much that she ran out into the road without thinking." Hisoka frowned, sensing without needing to look that Tsuzuki was wearing his serious face again, all traces of childlike exuberance subsumed in the powerful Shinigami. There was something... He closed his eyes, trying to sift some meaning out of the emotions swirling through the room, but they seemed to slip though his grip like water.

"Can you get anything else?" Tsuzuki asked urgently. "Just what was she afraid of?"

Hisoka shook his head minutely. "Not on the surface. I'll have to go deeper – if you think it's that important?" He looked up at his partner, knowing without question what the answer would be, but dreading it with all his heart. His own spirit senses were telling him that something about this case was very important indeed, but he was selfish enough to wish desperately that he not have to do this. Once he let his shields go, especially in such a place, it would be harder than ever to build them up again, and the prospect of opening himself to so much pain...

"It's that important. Can you do it?" Tsuzuki's eyes echoed the concern Hisoka could feel from him. Concern for himself; it still astonished him.

"Yes, but I'll need you help. If I can't... If I'm unconscious for longer than ten minutes, or if I get trapped as she's dying – you'll have to bring me back." Hisoka clenched his fists hard, then opened them slowly, breathing heavily.

"Okay. How do I do that?" Tsuzuki wanted to know, the concern deeper than ever. Hisoka shrugged as lightly as he could manage.

"Shake me, hit me – whatever works."

"Okay," Tsuzuki said again, somewhat nervously, but Hisoka had already stepped forward and laid his now-corporeal hand against Reiko's unbandaged arm.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hisoka looked so pale and still. Of course, being Hisoka, he was always pale – unless he was angry, when bright spots burned across his cheekbones and a fey look entered his eyes – and usually pretty still, too. This stillness, though, seemed unnatural; he was slumped across the bed where Kamari Reiko lay, his hand still clamped around her unmoving forearm, and Tsuzuki couldn't tell whether he was breathing. Of course, it wasn't as if he technically needed to, being a Shinigami, but it felt wrong and Tsuzuki didn't like it. Seventy years in the Shokan Division had sharpened his spirit senses incredibly, and over the past couple of years he had got used to the sense of Hisoka's presence. To have it suddenly gone was a little disconcerting. 

Of course, he told himself reassuringly, it wasn't that Hisoka was gone completely, he was just submerged in the Kamari girl's consciousness. Soon he would open his eyes and sit up, and then Tsuzuki would suggest that they go and get something to eat, and Hisoka would make one of his usual disparaging remarks... It would be all right.

Tsuzuki shifted on the plastic hospital chair, reminding himself to watch the girl rather than the young Shinigami slumped beside her. He disliked hospitals just as much as Hisoka did; they brought back far too many painful memories. Still, his gaze kept slipping back to his partner. _Shouldn't he be waking up by now?_ Tsuzuki wondered, absently picking at a loose thread in his sleeve. Just as the thought crossed his mind, the monitors surrounding the bed began flashing and beeping urgently, summoning doctors and nurses from the outer ward.

Panicking, Tsuzuki grabbed Hisoka's limp body by the shoulders and shook him urgently. Nothing, except that his head wobbled back and forth on his neck like a day-old chick's. Cringing, Tsuzuki shook him again, harder, then slapped him gently across the face, calling his name, but there was still no response. He could hear running footsteps in the corridor; soon the hospital staff who had been 'distracted' by the Shinigami on their way in would arrive. There was nothing else for it; heaving Hisoka's inert form over his shoulder (and hoping desperately that separating him from Reiko wouldn't cause any more problems), Tsuzuki stepped away from the bed at the same time as he whispered the activation cantrip of the fuda charm he had slipped from his pocket. An invisibility fuda; it wouldn't last long, but hopefully it would give him enough time to bring his partner round and get both of them the hell out of there. If Hisoka was still tangled up in the girl's mind when she died, Tsuzuki didn't know what would happen. He didn't particularly want to find out.

As the doctors rushed in to begin attempting to resuscitate Kamari Reiko – an attempt Tsuzuki already knew to be doomed to failure – he studied the unconscious form of his young partner. Hisoka was breathing, but only barely. Shaking hadn't worked...

"Come on, Hisoka, wake up!" Tsuzuki begged. He had to do something! Screwing a tight lid on his protesting conscience, he lifted his hand and hit the slight boy sharply across the face – once, twice – as hard as he could. Still no response at all. Desperate now, he clutched Hisoka to him. He could feel Reiko's spirit slipping further and further away, beyond the living world and towards the boundaries of Meifu. The idea that she might be taking Hisoka with her filled him with irrational panic – for surely Hisoka, being already dead, could not be harmed by repeating the transfer. Tsuzuki looked down at the blank, unseeing face and tried to work out what to do. Hisoka was an empath...

__

Come on, feel how worried am about you! Come back – come back to me! ...To me... Acting on reflex, out of pure instinct that he would never be able to understand or explain, Tsuzuki bent his head and pressed his mouth against Hisoka's.

Afterwards, all he really remembered was a moment of softness and warmth before Hisoka's body convulsed weakly and he began to cough. Overcome with relief, Tsuzuki backed away hastily and tried to reinforce his emotional barriers. Best not to mention that little incident, even if Hisoka had said to do anything he could; it would only embarrass the boy, and there was the chance that he might read more into it than simple desperation. Considering Hisoka's past, that wasn't something Tsuzuki wanted, and it would only make trouble between them. He had decided not long ago that Hisoka was the best partner he'd had in years; he was certainly the longest-lasting. And after all – it had done the trick. Happy again and smiling hugely with relief, Tsuzuki reached out to prop Hisoka up, the memory of his partner's words in Kyoto sliding through the back of his mind.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pain. So much pain. And fear – fear to drown in, smothering him, pulling him under no matter how hard he struggled to remain himself. Images borne on the sea of yellow-green-black-grey emotions; a reaching hand, a shadowed face, a bird shot in the wing, arrested in flight. They faded as everything else was doing, as he could feel himself doing, turning to ice and slipping beneath the surface... He panicked, struggling desperately against the tide that consumed him, but it was so cold now, the chill weighting him down, and he knew that soon there would be nothing left...

Warmth. Sudden warmth enclosing him, softness and heat of gold and crimson pulling him back to himself. And suddenly his pain was his own, he was himself, back in his own mind and heart and body, shaking and coughing and being propped up like a sack of potatoes by his partner.

As soon as he could physically manage it, Hisoka pulled away from Tsuzuki's supporting strength. _I have to be strong. I can stand on my own._ "How long was I unconscious?" He was dismayed to find his voice came out on a croak.

"I don't know." Tsuzuki shrugged, watching him worriedly. "Not long; ten or fifteen minutes." Hisoka opened his mouth to snap something at the idiot and then winced and felt at his face gently. The entire left side felt as though he had walked into the door.

"You hit me?"

Tsuzuki actually blushed. "I'm sorry. You said to try anything."

__

Well, if it worked... "Do we need to stay here any longer?" Hisoka asked hopefully. His head was pounding from the effort of trying to keep so much out, and he was so tired he felt like falling over where he stood. Behind them, the doctors were slowly shutting down the monitors around Reiko's shrouded form, preparing to take her body to the morgue. Hisoka could feel their disappointment and sorrow so rawly that it made him wince. "Can we go back to Enmacho? I can tell you what I found out once we're there." And besides, the journey would give him time to work out just what exactly he _had_ found out.

****

TBC


	2. Precious Things

Yami no Matsuei belongs to Matsushita Yoko-sensei, certainly not my artistically-challenged self!

A/N: I've decided to keep on naming my chapters after Tori Amos songs, now that I've started. The last chapter was Little Earthquakes because 'it's always the little things that shake us most,' and because of the lyric: _give me life/give me pain/give me myself again._ I'll explain this title at the end...

Crimson Threads and Gold

Chapter Two – Precious Things

"It was a person." Hisoka looked up at Tsuzuki, who was sprawled in his desk chair with a cup of tea clutched in his hands. "That she was scared of. I don't know his name, but he's the reason she was killed – she saw him in the crowd, and it terrified her so much that she ran into the road."

"Oh." Tsuzuki took another sip of tea, frowning in thought. "Who is he, then? Why was Reiko so afraid of him?"

"I don't really know – as far as I gathered, he was threatening her, so she ran away, and when she saw he'd followed her she panicked." Hisoka frowned, thinking back. "He wasn't someone she was used to; he must have been a new arrival at the village. She... it was fear of pain," he ended uncertainly. It seemed so little, now, but he had been so certain that it was important...

"So, the most likely scenario was that he was threatening to hurt her?" Tsuzuki asked, setting down his cup. Hisoka nodded slowly, trying to dredge up anything else that might be remotely useful.

"I... I think... he had hurt her before – there were memories of pain, as well as the fear."

"Hmm. You don't know his name – how about identifying features?" Tsuzuki was watching him far too closely, Hisoka thought, and there was something... after a moment, he realised what it was. His partner normally tried to maintain a shield of calm when he was around him, knowing how much the turbulent emotions of others affected Hisoka. Now, though, there was a faint hint of worry, of concern, and something else, something more personal...

"It's not Muraki, if that's what you're thinking," Hisoka informed the older man, trying to keep his voice even. "This man was shorter, with black eyes and long dark hair."

"Oh," Tsuzuki said again, and there was relief there, a sharp flash of blue across a deeper field of emotion – bright red and black for anger and hate, all twined around something deeply crimson that slipped away even as Hisoka reflexively tried to grasp at it. Shaking himself mentally, the younger Shinigami deliberately let it pass, focusing his mind back on the problem at hand. Long ago he had decided that it was unethical to purposefully attempt to read beneath the surface of another's heart without good reason. And poking about in his partner's private thoughts and feelings was definitely an invasion.

"How long before we can talk to Reiko about this?" he asked instead, wondering if this mysterious man was worth investigating. There was something else associated with the face he had seen in Kamari Reiko's mind, some other connection... "Oh, and another thing. The illness she had was giving her fainting fits, and as far as I can tell she seems to have associated those with 'him' as well."

"Really?" Tsuzuki looked puzzled. "I suppose, if she didn't know she was ill... Anyway, we won't be able to see her at all until after her trial, which could take days. Not before the weekend, anyway."

"Oh. So, then tomorrow we go and find out about this man?"

Tsuzuki drooped. "But, Hisoka," he tried, putting on his best pleading expression. "Tomorrow is baking day at City View Restaurant!"

"No chance," Hisoka stated, staring at his partner flatly.

Tsuzuki's lip quivered, and Hisoka steeled himself to endure the worst the elder Shinigami could do. "But, but, it's my favourite... Almond cake and apple pie, and after tomorrow there won't be any left..." His eyes were now huge, quivering pools of violet pleading, and Hisoka looked away, pretending unconcern.

"You eat too many sweets as it is. It won't hurt you for once." He didn't need to look to see that those big, expressive eyes were now threatening tears. Any moment now Tsuzuki would accuse him of cruelty again. Would it hurt to give in for once? It would make Tsuzuki so happy, and since Kyoto Hisoka had noticed that his partner smiled less often. _I'm going to cave, aren't I, just like he wants me to..._ "But, I suppose," he conceded with a sigh, "we could stop in tomorrow on the way if you really want to."

"Uwaa! Really?" Tsuzuki demanded, the smile threatening to engulf his face. Hisoka had to fight to keep his own expression impassive; exasperation and amusement warred within him as his partner beamed across the desks. Tsuzuki's joy was tangible, warm and yellow-orange and less to do with the possibility of sweets than with Hisoka's capitulation. Had anyone else been present, Hisoka would have made a cutting remark, but that warm-orange-joy-excitement was actually quite soothing, and he allowed his empathic senses to simply float on the surface of the emotions for a moment. Tsuzuki was the most complex person he had ever met, and Hisoka knew that what his partner showed the world was never the whole of what he thought or felt. But at the moment, Tsuzuki seemed at peace, and that was enough.

***

"Aargh." Tsuzuki flopped down on the bed with a groan, arms flung out to either side. _That Tatsumi_, he thought with a helpless sigh. The secretary had been positively scary that afternoon, when he and Hisoka had come back to the office. Just because they hadn't been able to find the Kamari girl's stalker... How _could_ you find someone who had disappeared into thin air, anyway? Tsuzuki thought rebelliously. But Tatsumi had not been satisfied with this excuse, and had made some rather cutting remarks. And _then_, he had threatened to cut Tsuzuki's salary – as if that was even possible, considering the level of pay he was already at – if he wasn't going to do the work to earn it. At that point Hisoka had stepped in and adroitly pointed out that they had made _some_ progress; Tsuzuki had taken the opportunity to escape the secretary's wrath, but not before Tatsumi had summarily ordered them to abandon the mysterious man and stay in the office, catching up on paperwork, until the next case came in.

Tsuzuki scowled petulantly; he _hated_ paperwork. Last month Tatsumi had made him fill out the same form three times before he was satisfied, and it was a safe bet that something similar would happen this time around. Hisoka never seemed to have problems with _his_ deskwork, but then Tsuzuki supposed that he wouldn't. Or at least that he wouldn't ever let anyone know if he did.

Tsuzuki sighed again, rolling over and propping his chin on his hands. Hisoka – that was a problem, he knew. His little partner simply refused to let anyone see what he was feeling; it was hard for Tsuzuki to tell whether this was because he was still suppressing his own emotions, or if he was just being reticent about them. Hisoka was important to him, and sometimes Tsuzuki worried that he might hurt himself even more simply because he was incapable of turning to others. And the idea of Hisoka being hurt...

Unbidden, Tsuzuki remembered back when Hisoka had first agreed to become his partner, when the demon he had attempted to fight had invaded his own body and used him to hurt and mutilate Hisoka. The fact that neither Sargantanus nor Tsuzuki's own buried psyche had known that it was actually Hisoka rather than Hijiri was irrelevant in Tsuzuki's eyes; the fact that his hand had caused such injury and pain to his partner was enough. He would never forget it.

For a long time after that incident, Tsuzuki had been certain that Hisoka must hate him. He had wondered often what kept the younger Shinigami with him, and in his more depressive moments had been certain that it was out of pity. Surely Hisoka could have been able to do so much better than _him_...

And then. Kyoto, and Muraki; darkness and self-hatred and the knowledge that he was just as monstrous as they had all feared, that he didn't even deserve that pity, didn't deserve to exist any longer. And he would have made good on that realisation, except that suddenly Hisoka had been there, beside him. At the time, Tsuzuki had simply panicked; Touda's fires were hurting Hisoka, and that could not be allowed to happen. It was only later that his partner's words had really begun to sink in. And more than his words; his very presence. Why should Hisoka want to risk his life – or afterlife, or existence – to be with a monster like him? To be with someone he hated? As he recuperated in the hospital – driven mad by Watari's refusal to let him alone for a minute – Tsuzuki had slowly come to the realisation that despite his brusque exterior and frequent irritability, perhaps Hisoka didn't really hate him after all. Perhaps Hisoka even cared about him a little, in some way?

Of course, on bad days Tsuzuki was sure that it was all just an illusion, his own mind conjuring up things that didn't really exist. And on those days the guilt writhed and twisted in him like a live thing; guilt for all the lives he had taken, all the pain he had caused. And always, deepest and most choking of all, guilt for first hurting Hisoka so badly, and then threatening his very existence. He was worse than Muraki had ever been; Hisoka had _trusted him_... And so on, around and around in his mind until there was nothing he could do but huddle helplessly inside his own accusing psyche.

Dismissing his dark thoughts with an effort, Tsuzuki levered himself up from the bed and padded slowly into his kitchen. Setting the kettle on the stove, he began making preparations for tea. Something warm, and there was still half of an almond cake in his fridge... He had been surprised, last week, that Hisoka had agreed so readily to let him go to the bakery sale; he had thought his partner would take a great deal more persuasion. Maybe Hisoka had been tired or something? After all, he had been gone so long, probing Kamari Reiko's mind, and Tsuzuki knew how he hated to expose himself to unrestrained emotions. Hisoka's control of his empathic powers had grown a great deal since he had first become a Shinigami, but he still sometimes had difficulties with it.

Pouring the hot water slowly into his mug, Tsuzuki wondered whether the heat he could feel on his face was entirely due to the rush of steam from the kettle. For some reason, the memory of Hisoka's soft mouth had popped vividly into his mind, accompanied by a hazy image of his young partner, small and uncertain as he stepped towards Tsuzuki. Blinking, he wondered where that memory had come from; it wasn't anything he could place, but the vulnerability in Hisoka's eyes took his breath away. Confused, the Shinigami raised the mug to his lips and sipped at his tea, too distracted to notice either its delicate flavour or the fact that the heat of it was scalding him.

***

Hisoka sighed again and rolled his shoulders, consciously trying to relax himself. Exhaling on a deep breath, he counted three pulse beats and then slowly breathed in again... _one, two, three_... then out... After a while, the blank walls of his bedroom started to blur before his eyes, and he let them drift closed, carefully letting go of the tight hold he had on his empathic senses. The world around him spread out like a unrolling map of colours and feelings; although there was no one within his immediate range, Hisoka could make out the lingering residues that people had brought with them in the past. Happiness, worry, amusement, affection... he let them all wash over him, spreading out his consciousness to the effective limits of his natural range. He could have pushed on further, if he wished, towards the minds and hearts of the other inhabitants of Meifu, but that would have taken an effort, and he was content just to relax here for the moment.

After a while, Hisoka started to feel sleep creeping up on him; the emotional remnants that he felt seemed to blur together into a strange, kaleidoscopic tapestry of colour and feeling, until he could no longer distinguish them from each other. As they faded into the warm darkness, the overwhelming impression that lingered behind was of loneliness.

By itself, that wouldn't have been enough to wake Hisoka up; over the long years he had grown painfully used to his solitude, had long since accepted the fact that he would always be alone. An unnatural monster didn't deserve the company of others, much less their affection or love, and he had learned to wrap his solitude around him like a shroud, closing everything out. After all, the only thing other people could want was to hurt him; his so-called family had instilled this belief deeply in their sensitive son, and Muraki had only reinforced it.

Loneliness... What surprised Hisoka enough to wake him up from the edge of dreaming was the aching, painful desire for comfort. Being alone _hurt_; alone, there was nothing for him except his own mind, and the inevitable memories. Memories of cages; memories of darkness, and tears, and screams ripped from a child's throat in the sick light of the red moon. No one would come, no one would save him. No one ever had. Desperately, Hisoka found himself clinging to the image of his partner as a shield against the emptiness inside him. Tsuzuki...

Helpless, Hisoka remembered the _Queen Camellia_ – _blood on his hands and darkness and fear and terror and Muraki's eyes following him, knowing and amused_ – and the way his partner had held him afterwards, rocked him as he wept and shook and whispered words of comfort that only he could hear. And more than anything, he wanted that again; the feeling of Tsuzuki's arms around him suddenly seemed to hold all the comfort in the world, and Hisoka desperately wished for it. Squeezing his eyes shut against the darkness behind them, he remembered what had happened in Kyoto, remembered the way that _he_ had held on desperately, trying with the strength of his own hands to hold Tsuzuki together, keep his violet-eyed partner _with him_...

Hisoka sighed, hating the way his body trembled on the edge of silent tears. If he was honest with himself, he knew that he didn't have the right to go to Tsuzuki for comfort, not outside of work. How could he ask the older Shinigami for support, when he knew that Tsuzuki was just as broken inside as he himself was. It never ceased to amaze him that there could be so much pain behind that smiling face, so much sorrow in those expressive eyes when his partner thought no one was looking. He shouldn't be forced to patch Hisoka up too, just because the boy was unable to cope.

Hugging himself tightly and biting his lip, Hisoka lay awake for a long time, trying not to let himself care.

****

TBC

Precious Things: well, in essence it's about pain, and scars, and the way we cling to our old wounds. I really didn't intend for this chapter to be all angst, honestly...


End file.
